"Assuming this progress, every needed reform will infallibly follow."
"True; but this presupposed progress is a work of time. Suppose it accomplished, what would you do? I am anxious to see you actually and practically at work."
"I should begin by reducing the rate of postage to a penny."
"I have heard you speak of a halfpenny."*
* See chap. xii. of Sophismes, second series, post.
"Yes, but as I have other reforms in view, I should proceed prudently, in the first instance, to avoid any risk of a deficit."
"Fine prudence, to be sure! You have already landed yourself in a deficit of 30 millions of francs."
"Then I should reduce the salt-tax to 10 francs."
"Good. Then you land yourself in a deficit of other thirty millions. You have doubtless invented a new tax?"
"Heaven forbid! And besides, I do not flatter myself with possessing an inventive genius."